Art Gallery
These art pieces are response art created by our art therapists, responding to their client sessions. You may purchase any of these art pieces, if you are drawn to them and would like to support the work we do here at Solace. To purchase, please contact us with the title of the artwork. All sales proceeds will go towards the facilitation of art therapy sessions (e.g. purchasing of art materials for clients). Thank you!
Title: Hope
Price: S$480
Dimensions: 76.2 x 101.6 (cm)
Description: “I know I have to.. But I can’t seem to. I know it’s better to.. But I don’t have the courage to.”
This hesitation is often present in sessions. As much as our clients want to and acknowledge the need to process their past traumatic experiences, it is never an easy, smooth process.
This artwork was made using the left over paint of the client who was working on her childhood trauma. The overall sensing of the client's artwork indicated an untold trauma experience. The client avoided speaking about it.The avoidance of the pain expressed the reality of the struggle. Using the left over paint used by the client to process the pain, was used to response to the hesitation of the client and to seek hope for the therapist.
Hope plays a vital role in moving forward. We can’t predict the future. But we can hope for the better.
Title: The Golden Portal
Price: S$380
Dimensions: 60.96 x 91.44 (cm)
Description: The internal connection through the power of our external senses.
This artwork was in response to a client who dived deep into her self-consciousness through the touch sense. The client engaged in hand painting using acrylic paint on canvas. The art therapist constantly yet gently reminded the client to push the boundaries to break-free from the struggles that she was facing during this sensorial experience. Once the attention was mindfully brought to the felt sensation on the hands, the client entered a different zone of her innerself. This insightful and rich experience affirmed and reminded the art therapist that our hands may be a portal to our innerselves.
The art therapist used gold acrylic paint to imprint her palms in the middle, 'recreating' the client's sensorial experience and to indicate the dynamic power and the 'hidden' portal to your innerself.
Title: Embrace The Gift
Price: S$380
Dimensions: 60.96 x 91.44 (cm)
Description:
It's no longer strange.
It's no longer unknown.
It is a magical journey
and a gift for the human race.
By this time, the art therapist has experienced somatic countertransference several times and has come to terms with her experiences. She responded to the client's session where she felt somatic countertransference. The circular glowing image in the middle represents the core of the art therapists. The green strokes represent the client's bodily reactions reaching out to the therapist's body. This is an additional layer of crucial and valuable information that is especially useful when working with her clients with complex trauma.
Somatic countertransference is the therapist's body reaction in response to the client's bodily pain or reaction that takes place during their art making process. In other words, the art therapist is able to experience the physical state of the client during the session through her own physical body. This allows the art therapist to identify the client's physical pain that could be potentially linked to where the trauma is stored or held in the body.
Title: The Eye
Price: S$380
Dimensions: 76.2 x 101.6 (cm)
Description:
Layers piled up
Marks left behind
A watchful eye always ready to fight
Should we run or should we hide
I have no control
My body decides
This artwork was done by the therapist across several sessions of working with a client struggling with years of trauma. Every experience reinforces her defences and influences how she views and react to the world around her.
Title: Intersperce
Price: S$320
Dimensions: 76.2 x 101.6 (cm)
Description: Trauma affects us in so many more ways than we can imagine. Unknowingly it sips into parts of our lives and shapes our identity.
This work reflects the artist/therapist's sentiment when working with a client who experienced developmental trauma. The artist/therapist started by painting a form that resembled an embryo, the faint brush strokes reflect how each experience hits the core of a person and how it sips and spreads into parts of the person unknowingly. It leaves faint marks that taint a person's core.
Title: (Un)Known
Price: S$180
Dimensions: 40.64 cm
Description: In a session, a client creates an artwork and shares thereafter what the artwork is about and how they feel about it. However, there is always the unknown element that is present in the sessions that we are therapists are mindful of and to feel comfortable with.
The unknown could be: (1) the unconscious information that may have surfaced in the artwork that may have been missed out on by both the therapist and the client, (2) the sharing may have been withheld by the clients, and (3) there could be a crucial information that have been blocked out completely, staying in the unconscious.
All three examples are represented by the black part of this painting. In the psychological theories, the unconscious (the unknown) is always represented as the ice berg under the sea and if often much larger than what we consciously know. However, in the therapy sessions, the art therapists attempt to bridge the gap and balance the difference as much as we could. The pastel colours on the other side of the canvas represents the multiple emotions felts during each session by both our client and the therapist.
Title: The Beginning
Price: S$180
Dimensions: 40.64 cm
Description: This art therapist attempted to express calmness in the overall process while highlighting chaos amongst the colours in response to her first ever experience of somatic countertransference with her client.
Somatic countertransference is the therapist's body reaction in response to the client's bodily pain or reaction that takes place during their art making process. In other words, the art therapist is able to experience the physical state of the client during the session through her own physical body. This allows the art therapist to identify the client's physical pain that could be potentially linked to where the trauma is stored or held in the body.
The art therapist was in an unknown, chaotic zone, in silence and alone. The questions in the art therapist's mind was getting louder and louder. This is a moment where the art therapist was calm and in chaos at the same time. How does that even happen? Staying grounded in presence externally while managing a chaotic mind internally was a conflicting moment that the art therapist. This is a snippet of a regular session of art psychotherapists at Solace. Being comfortable being in this state and expressing this struggle through art is what keeps us continue working at an optimal level.
Title: Holding Space
[in image order]
Price: S$120
Dimensions: 38 (L) x 17 (B) (cm)
Price: S$80
Dimensions: 12 (W) x 5.5 (H) (cm)
Price: S$80
Dimensions: 6 (W) x 8 (H) (cm)
Description: This series of artworks was done by the artist/therapist while working with children who experience adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The therapist experienced rejections, projections of anger, neediness, sadness and ambivalent feelings from the children. Holding on to these reactions and working through them are part of the therapeutic process.
The mixture of soft materials (yarn, fabrics) and harder/rougher materials (twine, plastic strips) in all three artworks reflected the ambivalent feelings that the therapist experienced and received, when working with the clients. The artist/therapist intuitively turned to weaving and crocheting after the sessions as it allowed the therapist to experience comfort. Each artwork also resembles holding spaces for the challenging feelings.
Title: Comfort Chaos
[in image order]
Price: S$158
Dimensions: 30 x 40 (cm)
Price: S$158
Dimensions: 30 x 40 (cm)
Price: S$80
Dimensions: 20.3 x 25.2 (cm)
Description: "I think I find comfort in chaos"
The artist/therapist reflected the process of creating these art pieces to her clients' sharing of finding comfort in chaos. When a person grew up in adverse situations, they get use to things not working out for them, chaos becomes an expected outcome, it becomes the norm, it defines their meaning of comfort.
To the artist/therapist, the process of creating these art pieces was soothing, despite the mess that was left behind after the process. The artist/therapist poured layers of paint over the wooden board and gradually tilt the board and watch the layers of paint flow and merge, creating these unruly patterns. Tilting the board allowed the artist/therapist to control the direction where the paint flows. However, there is a limit to how much the artist/therapist can control the final outcome of the art pieces.